The History of Transportation and Freight Brokers

Transportation and freight brokers have been moving goods since 1852 when Wells, Fargo & Company opened its doors in California, at that time anyone with a wagon and team of horses could open an express company. Before 1900, most freight transported over land was carried by trains using railroads. Trains were highly efficient at moving large amounts of freight, but could only deliver that freight to centralized urban centers for distribution by horse-drawn transport.

The few trucks that existed at the time were mostly novelties, appreciated more for their advertising space than for their utility. The use of range-limited electric engines, lack of paved rural roads, and small load capacities limited trucks to mostly short-haul urban routes. As time moved on transportation began to gain popularity and new technology made trucks more capable of carrying goods safely, efficiently, and economically. This added to the rapidly growing infrastructure of highways and interstates, truck travel by road was the natural answer to many logistical and transportation challenges.

Starting in 1910, the development of a number of technologies gave rise to the modern trucking industry. With the advent of the gasoline-powered internal combustion engine, improvements in transmissions, the move away from chain drives to gear drives, and the development of the tractor/semi-trailer combination, shipping by truck gained in popularity. Today nearly every good you buy at a store or have around your home or office was transported one time or another by a truck, often multiple times. The amount of freight moved by truck every year in the United States adds up to a value of over $670 billion dollars, Ever since goods have been produced and needed transport over longer distance, freight brokers have been used. Freight brokers leverage extensive knowledge of the transportation industry and a wide list of contacts to match up companies that need to have product shipped with carriers looking for freight to move.